Dance

Dance is the study of bodily movement in its many manifestations–as an expressive art form, as a key to the humanistic study of the world’s cultures, and as a means of gaining understanding and control over one’s self and environment.

The Scripps Dance program centers on the interdisciplinary study of dance and movement. Advanced technical training is provided and encouraged. However, the focus of the program is on developing integrated individuals who can think, feel, and speak with their bodies as well as their minds. Graduates have gone on to perform and choreograph professionally or have moved towards careers or graduate study in arts administration, criticism, education, dance ethnology, dance history, film and video, movement therapy, somatics, physical therapy, or medicine.

Scripps dance classes, noted for individualized instruction and course work, are open to all students regardless of their majors. Cross-disciplinary connections are encouraged and supported. Technique classes may be repeated until the student is ready to advance to the next level. Customarily this takes two semesters.

Although Scripps dance classes are non-competitive and emphasize sound warm-up and stretching techniques, dance is a strenuous physical pursuit that places greater demands on the body than everyday activity. Students with a history of injury or health problems are advised to consult a physician prior to participating.

Choreographic Opportunities

A number of performance and choreographic opportunities are available to all students. The fall dance concert, In the Works, is produced jointly with Pomona Dance. In the spring, Scripps and Pomona each produce their own mainstage concerts. An informal, intercollegiate, student-produced concert, Fast Forward, takes place at the end of spring semester. Additional projects related to classes or independent student projects frequently occur. Normally, students are expected to take Dance Composition I before, or concurrent with, choreographing for a Scripps Dance production. Students must choreograph for an informal concert (i.e., In the Works, Fast Forward, or independent project) before their work will be considered for inclusion in a mainstage production.

Dance Award

The Lucile Phillips Morrison Award was founded in 1946-47 to provide an honorarium for a Scripps dance student whose enthusiasm for and interest in modern dance warranted encouragement.
The purpose for establishing such a scholarship was to encourage an interest in modern dance, particularly for those Scripps students who had found dance to be a vital part of their educational and creative growth.